csandy@cybaswan.UUCP (Andy Parkman) (06/03/91)
At the Computer Science Dept. of University College Swansea, we have
recently bought 20 Macintosh LC Colour Bundles for use as an
undergraduate laboratory. At present we do not have the resources to buy
something like a Macintosh fx and large disk drives as a file server -
although we have already bought the LC Ethernet cards and will have
all the Mac's networked.
In the meantime I intend to use each machines 40 Mb hard disk to hold a
'core' image of required software ( system, word processing application,
draw application and programming languages ). The said 'image' would be held
on a seperate hard disk from where it would be re-instated on each machine,
from time to time.
* As the Mac is so customisable, how can I prevent undergraduates
from altering the configuration set?
* Is there any facility available to log users in and assign UNIX
like user and group identities?
We also need to provide laser writing facilities, however with our budget
already over stretched we are very concerned about limiting the amount of
printing that takes place or at least providing accounting facilities which
would allow us to charge for usage over a certain level.
* Is there a package which provides this accounting facility?
* Given that:
- The users of these Mac's will have UNIX usernames and filestores
- The UNIX network and the Mac network are linked
- Laser writing facility already exist on the UNIX network which
provides the required accounting facilities ie pages printed against
usernames.
Is there a software package that allows user to login and then uses
this information to forward printing jobs to the UNIX network so that
the job is accounted for properly under the UNIX accounting facility?
We are currently using System 6.0.7, have System 7.0 but I would prefer not
to commit the net to System7 until 7.01 or 7.02.
I would be grateful if you could share some of your experience with me on these
matters as I don't have much experience of networking the Macintosh, although I
am a very keen Mac user and a new convert myself.
Yours hopefully,
Andy Parkman
Research Programmer
University College Swansea
Tel: (0792) 205678 ext 4519
e-mail: csandy@uk.ac.swan.pyr ( UK JANET )